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Ships
__TOC__ Ships are used to traverse space and perform a variety of different tasks between traversing. As with previous Elite games, there will be a variety of designs. Currently there are 17 ships, built by a number of manufacturers - each having its own unique style. There are plans to have a total of 30 playable ships and some variants in addition to some non-playable ships. Each ship has access to a range of different modules which they can fit to help specialize as traders, smugglers, bounty hunters, pirates, etc. Of the unreleased ships, every ship listed as upcoming is already represented in game data and makes up the remaining balance of the original 25 planned ships. Every ship in the speculated ships column is something we have concept art for or developer comments, but is not currently present in the game data. All commanders begin the game with a Sidewinder. The player may upgrade components or purchase an entirely new ship based upon their needs and available funds. New ships can only be purchased at Stations with the Shipyard service and modules can only be changed or upgrades at stations with the Outfitting service. Ship Types Multipurpose Multipurpose ships are a jack-of-all-trades in that they can easily be fitted for whatever role the player needs; whether it be hauling cargo, ship-to-ship combat, or exploring the stars, multipurpose ships can do it all. Combat Combat ships are typically faster, more agile and more heavily armed than other ships of the same size. The exception to this would be gun boats, which have more weapon mounts designed for turrets, but sacrifice their agility for them. Freighter Freighters are typically slow, cumbersome and lightly armed, but provide extreme hauling capabilities. Useful for traders and smugglers alike. Explorer Exploration ships typically come with large default jump ranges, large Fuel Tanks for ships of their size, and should be fitted with lots of low class Internal Compartments for scanners to optimize jump distance. These ships are designed to be able to equip the multitude of scanning equipment needed for an expedition, then fly long distances into the void without the need for regular refuelling through the use of Fuel Scoops. Passenger Couriers who fly passengers and valuable items with small storage requirements have a special class of ships available to them. These ships are elegant and fast, designed to quickly and comfortably get from one system to the next. You can think of them as giant space-limousines. However, as of now, passenger ships have no significant use in the game as passengers themselves have yet to be implemented. Ship Stats Base Ship= Sidewinder can be obtained for free. |-|Trading Ship= A-Class Frame Shift Drive, Thrusters and Power Distributor and lowest mass on everything else except Fuel Tank. All Internal Compartments are Cargo Racks. Power Plant is the lightest available with sufficient power. |-|Explorer Ship= A-Class Frame Shift Drive and lowest mass on everything else except Fuel Tank. Internal Compartments contain biggest size A-Class Fuel Scoop, Advanced Discovery Scanner and Detailed Surface Scanner. Power Plant is the lightest available with sufficient power. |-|A-Class Ship= A-Class everything, Bulkheads as Reactive Surface Composite which is the most expensive part of a ship. Hardpoints, utility mounts and internal compartments empty except Shield Generator which is highest possible size. Ship Outfitting All ships are highly customizable through outfitting. Each outfit slot has a maximum class that can be put into that slot. This only lists what type of outfit slots are available for each ship, their exact content has to be put on some other page. For example: Internal compartments can contain cargo space, where class 1 = 2t, class 2 = 4t, class 3 = 8t, class 4 = 16t... But Internal compartments can also contain shield cell banks, scanners, etc. Apart from classes, outfits also have a quality rating A-H, and other characteristics such as energy drain, armour piercing, etc. Max class for each outfit slot in table below (more info on respective ship page): * Note: All ships currently have a max Bulkhead class of 8. Manufacturers Faction Ships Frontier are developing a family of ships for the navies of each faction in the game. Examples: * Imperial Courier - Empire Scout * Imperial Cutter - Civilian version of Empire Light Warship * Empire Fighter - Empire Fighter * F63 Condor - Federal Fighter * Farragut - Federal Capital Ship * Majestic Class Interdictor - Empire Capital Ship The fleet-class ships that are available to the game’s major factions follow a hierarchy.Newsletter #7 Cruisers (Battlecruisers, Battleships, Interdictors) Long range, independent ships that are capable of controlling entire systems. Heavily armed and capable of deploying large fighter squadrons. The capital ships already shown are an example of this class. In the Empire they are usually known as “Interdictors” – named after the first successful class of cruisers. Currently the most common and most successful is the Majestic class – generally referred to as a “Majestic class Interdictor”. As ships that can also carry out ambassadorial missions they can be used for ‘soft’ power projection, as well as hard. Frigates These are large ships designed for escort duties. The actual vessels vary greatly between navies, but are all designed to engage multiple small, fast enemies (typically fighters and missile swarms) and are loaded with point defence batteries. They will also have some anti-ship capability, but are not designed to go up against other warships. Destroyers These are anti-warship vessels, but are generally no longer used in the front line, though some are still in service. Carriers Designed for the deployment of fighter squadrons. Obsolete in the fleets of the major factions due to the popularity of Cruisers, but small navies still make use of them and some have even been converted into transporters. Transporters (Couriers) Armoured warships designed specifically for transporting valuable assets and cargo quickly and safely. Corvettes (Cutters) Light multi-role warships, capable of reconnaissance, incursions and escort missions. These small warships are also popular with smaller factions, organizations and even wealthy individuals due to their adaptability. The Imperial Cutter is a lighter and faster Corvette-class ship, which players will be able to get their hands on in the final game (assuming they can make the right contacts). Fighters Small short-range craft that generally cannot operate independently due to having no jump capability. Their main roles include the defence of stations and the large warships that they are deployed from. Commercial fighters are typically jump-capable and are therefore much more flexible than their faction-specific counterparts. Drones Small automated ships that have largely been phased out due to the existence of effective counter-measures. Ship Scale References